Someone Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

Someone Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov May 9, 2020

Nicolas Gessner's "Someone Behind the Door" (1971) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the disc include vintage trailer and radio spot for the film as well as exclusive new audio commentary by the director. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The amnesiac

Films that are as bad as Someone Behind the Door can be made only by directors that completely misjudge the talent they are given the opportunity to work with. In 1971, this is precisely how Nicolas Gessner ruined Someone Behind the Door -- he had absolutely no clue how to direct the film’s three stars: Charles Bronson, Anthony Perkins, and Jill Ireland.

Following an exhausting operation, brilliant brain surgeon Laurence Jeffries (Perkins) decides to bring home with him a stranger (Bronson) who has come to the hospital to seek help because he appears to have lost his memories. After approaching him in the emergency ward, the good doctor assures the visibly perplexed stranger that at his place he can help him recover faster and in a much more relaxing atmosphere.

They reach the doctor’s posh home just before dawn, where the stranger is offered a glass of orange juice with a tranquilizer and then promptly encouraged to make himself comfortable in the guest bedroom. After his new patient falls asleep, Dr. Jeffries quietly locks his door and goes up the stairs to his bedroom to see his wife, Frances (Ireland), waking up. While having breakfast, Dr. Jeffries is reminded by his wife that she will be heading to London to see her brother and that he would have to spend the next couple of days alone.

When eventually the stranger wakes up Dr. Jeffries offers him breakfast and then slowly begins evaluating the magnitude of his amnesia, hoping to extract from him bits of valuable information about his past. After the stranger proves to him that he is unable to recover any memories from the depths of his damaged mind, Dr. Jeffries very carefully begins crafting a brand hew identity for him -- the identity of a man married to a beautiful but cheating wife who might have had a plan to walk away from him. In just a few days the patient’s transformation is completed, and under the guidance of Dr. Jeffries he decides to meet the man (Henri Garcin) who is having an affair with his wife. The good doctor even agrees to let the stranger meet the man at his home.

Based on a short story by Jacques Robert, Someone Behind the Door was almost certainly intended to be a twisty thriller of the type that just a few years before it Julien Duvivier delivered with Diabolically Yours, in which Alain Delon plays another naïve amnesiac that gets trapped in a sinister plan. In fact, the manner in which Bronson’s character is manipulated after he enters the doctor’s secluded home pretty much confirms that Gessner had seen Duvivier’s film and borrowed a few ideas from it.

But this isn’t why Gessner’s film does not work. The problem with this film is that it immediately creates the impression that its stars are actually not the right people to play their characters, and it is not because they showed up for work unprepared. Gessner actually shoots them in oddly staged situations where the stars appear as if they are auditioning for future, still incomplete, projects, and over time it simply becomes impossible to ignore the fact that they are struggling. Bronson in particular looks terrible as the clueless amnesiac and yet the dangerous game that is at the center of the film relies almost exclusively on his ability to make him appear legit.

Before the predictable resolution, Gessner also forces the viewer to endure two equally awful rape sequences whose arty dramatics are simply nauseating. Needless to say, it is just sad to see the stars exiting this mess of a film with straight faces.

Someone Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Someone Behind the Door arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release is sourced from an older master that was supplied by StudioCanal. It is a pretty good master that is free of compromising digital corrections, but it has a few rough spots and its age tends to show. Basically, the entire film has a pleasing organic appearance and with a few specific encoding optimizations it actually could have looked quite wonderful in high-definition. However, some minor stability issues pop up, plus some background nuances get flattened by less than optimal shadow definition. Density levels can be improved as well, though overall I would say that these are the type of density levels that most good older masters emerge with. A few small dirt spots can be seen, but they are of the kind that virtually all viewers will ignore. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Someone Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The audio is very clear, stable, and nicely balanced. It was probably carefully transferred when the current master was prepared because I did not detect any conventional age-related anomalies. Dynamic intensity is unimpressive, but this is to be expected from a dialog-driven production.

Someone Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - a vintage trailer for Someone Behind the Door. In English, not subtitled. (3 min, 480/60i).

• Radio Spot - a vintage trailer for Someone Behind the Door narrated by Alfred Hitchcock. In English, not subtitled. (1 min, 1080p).

• Radio Spot - a vintage trailer for Someone Behind the Door. In English, not subtitled. (1 min, 1080p).

• Commentary - in this new commentary, director Nicolas Gessner shares some quite interesting information about the production of Someone Behind the Door, which to be honest makes the film sound a lot more amusing than it really is. However, it is a pretty short commentary because the director spends most of his time viewing the film. The commentary was recorded exclusively for Kino Lorber.

Someone Behind the Door Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Given the star power and Pierre Lhomme's contribution it is rather amazing to see what a bad film Someone Behind the Door turned out to be. It is one of those seriously broken head-scratchers that are impossible to repair, which is likely why it was left in its current form. Frankly, folks, I would not recommend this film even to those of you that are die-hard fans of its stars and might have considered picking it up to complete their filmographies in your collections. This recent release from Kino Lorber is sourced from an older but decent master that was provided by StudioCanal. It also features an exclusive new audio commentary by director Nicolas Gessner.